


logistics

by antipattern



Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Better Call Saul timeline, Gen, I wanted to get them all to work together but Lydia likes everything siloed, Lydia is #1 girlboss, Lydia-centric, Pregnancy, Vomiting, can't believe I wrote a Lydia story that didn't involve tea, my headcanon for Lydia's backstory is Laura Fraser's, she thinks it protects her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28664097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antipattern/pseuds/antipattern
Summary: Three cogs in a machine work smoothly. Or: the logistics team adds value.
Relationships: Gustavo Fring & Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, Mike Ehrmantraut & Lydia Rodarte-Quayle
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3
Collections: Blue Christmeth 2020





	logistics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sylvestris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvestris/gifts).



> Lydia's awful. I love her.

She’s relatively green when Schuler pulls her in. Not totally green—her credentials are impeccable, and she’s had to clear space on her desk for what will only be the start of her awards for excellence in leadership in business. At this point her accolades are for being a woman leader in business, but she will make it to the big leagues. She has no other choice.

Peter Schuler has taken an interest in her. This isn’t the first time an old man has noticed her, and it won’t be the last, but this one is the head of Madrigal’s fast food division. Lydia is not sure that he sees her as anything other than a promising junior colleague, but she is not naïve, and it’s easier to expect the worst and protect herself from disappointment.

Other men look at her like sharks at bleeding prey. She knows how to read that.

The third quarter had been less than stellar, through no fault of her own. Something wasn’t right with the restaurant division’s numbers. She made up her mind during a meeting, a Thursday. In the conference room her heartbeat had thumped so loudly in her ears that she was sure that everyone could hear it, like the noisy open-mouth chewing of a child.

She stopped by his office an hour later. “Mr. Schuler,” she said, impressed by how even she managed to keep her voice. “I wanted you to see something.”

She would not report this, she told him, because she trusted his judgment and was certain it was deliberate. In their line of work, she understood the value of discretion, and she wanted only to add value.

For his part, Schuler seemed delighted. “There’s a project in the works that I may loop you in on. Let me get back to you on this.”

She tries not to hope that he admires her steely resolve, her ability to take on more and more accounts, her endless striving to add value. It’s hell on her nerves. She works herself to the marrow until he comes by the next month.

“Lydia,” Schuler says, knocking with two knuckles on her office door. She nearly jumps at the sound. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Lydia trails behind him as they walk through the labyrinthine Houston office. Her feet ache in her sensible pumps, and she focuses on breathing the normal amount at the right volume. A girl at Stonehaven had once told her that she breathed too loudly, and Lydia has been self-conscious ever since.

She is a woman who goes to meetings for a living, and she’s still never been to this part of the building. Finally Schuler opens the door to a conference room, and sitting across a table is a man in a yellow shirt. His hands are folded in front of him and his smile is wide.

“Lydia,” Schuler says, “this is my colleague and good friend Gustavo Fring.”

“Ms. Rodarte-Quayle,” Fring says, and holds his hand out for her to shake. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

He knows her name, which means he’s been briefed on her, which means—

“Los Pollos Hermanos,” she says, embarrassed by the clamminess of her hands. “Yes. A pleasure to meet you, too.”

“Ah, good,” Schuler says. “She knows who you are.” The thought that she might be unaware of each and every division head and moving part is insulting, and she hopes she keeps that off her face. Lydia Rodarte-Quayle does not have time to watch television, but of course she’s seen the commercials.

“I have heard that you are very good at your work,” Fring says.

“Gustavo and I have talked, and we may have a proposition for you,” says Schuler.

They know that she knows about the numbers, the unrecorded shipments, and they value her discretion. They know she’s intelligent, and they respect her enough not to send her on her way with a bullshit excuse. They’re impressed by her knowledge, every aspect of Madrigal’s dealings accounted for, like she’s studied for a test that has never arrived.

Not yet.

“You should be head of logistics,” Schuler says.

“Thank you.” Lydia wets her lips with her tongue, careful not to smear her lipstick on her teeth. “Yes.”

They don’t talk details, but she understands that this proposition is extralegal. Highly lucrative. That they say nothing incriminating is the tip-off—other people speak so carelessly in meetings, at business lunches and events, and they don’t even realize how much collateral that gives her.

Of course she would never use it. Insurance is all it is. Snitches don’t survive group homes, and whistleblowers don’t make it in business, and if she’s on the right track, they really don’t flourish in the world that Fring gestures towards.

“Well, we should let Lydia get back to it,” Schuler says, squeezes her shoulder. She suppresses a shudder, focuses on her breath, nods at them both and walks away.

“This could work,” says Fring, loud enough for her to hear.

\--

She doesn’t care for Albuquerque. It’s always good to see Gus, of course, and it’s important that she keeps an eye on their mutual interests in the Southwest. She is the only one they can count on to take care of business like this, and it’s all because Lydia has made herself indispensable.

The air is dry, and despite her creams and lotions she can feel her skin aging in the desert sun. The light hurts her eyes. At least her hair is down and protecting her neck. What she needs is a good pair of sunglasses to cover half of her face, and she makes a point to get them when she’s safely back in Houston.

The thrill of the early work has worn off some, and she’s made it this far by quickly realizing that this is business like any other. Lucrative and dangerous work, but not so different from her role as a Madrigal executive. There’s people to manage, problems to mitigate.

Here is a problem: Mike seems unimpressed. He is not fazed by her, by the risk his actions as a “security consultant” pose to their cover, by the magnitude of what he’s found himself in.

A paycheck over $10,000 and he feels the need to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. She glances at his haggard face and wonders how much of that is damage from the sun.

“Lydia,” he says. “Now I know we both got something better to do.”

“Fring told me to give you a security badge,” she tells him curtly. “And since you insist on doing these ‘checks’ at the other southwestern terminals, I will be coming along to supervise you.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. They’re standing in the parking lot of the hotel she always stays at when she comes to Albuquerque. Lydia wonders if the asphalt is making the sun more intense; her vision swims.

She’s nearly relieved when he opens the passenger door of his car, gesturing for her to get in. Yes, she supposes, this is better.

She buckles her seatbelt and he laughs. “We’re not going for a drive,” Mike says, holding his palm out for the badge. She hands it to him, watches him throw it onto the dashboard. “If we’re doing this, we’re not doing this now.”

“Mike,” she says. “I am not asking. This is how it will be happening.”

“Sure,” he says. “But not right now. I came for the badge.”

Unbelievable. Arguing with a rock would yield more results. There is something rocklike about him—craggy. His face reminds her of someone from a long time ago, one of her mother’s revolving door of boyfriends, a man old enough to be Lydia’s grandfather. He had been nice enough, as far as her mother’s boyfriends went, but she had been terrified of his jowls. He had seemed impossibly ancient, and somehow that made him more terrifying than the ones who liked to yell.

She has no idea how old Mike is.

Her heel hits something plastic and an alcohol smell fills the car. She’s spilled the contents of a bottle of hand sanitizer, and she starts to gag, starts to retch.

Mike unlocks the car door, tells her to open it. She unbuckles herself and leans over the pavement, doing her best to keep whatever comes up off of her new Louboutin shoes.

Not very much comes up. She’d been too nervous to do anything more than pick at the continental breakfast.

Mike’s standing in front of her now, and the driver’s door is beeping. “You can shut it,” she says, trying not to look at the mess on the ground.

He walks back behind the car and rummages around for something in the glove compartment. Mike shuts the door and then he’s in front of her, handing her something.

“Here,” he says. It’s a black scrunchie. She hasn’t worn one of these in over a decade, and her hands shake as she ties her hair back.

“I see you came prepared,” she says.

“It’s my daughter-in-law’s,” he tells her. “When Stacey was pregnant, it was always helpful to have them on hand.”

Lydia stands, careful to avoid the vomit. She flushes, smooths out her skirt. “I get migraines,” she tells him.

Which is true, and part of why she’s always hated vomiting. No one likes it, of course, but for Lydia it’s proof that her body is not in her control. She hasn’t had a migraine in nearly a year.

“You’re not going to want to go on a stakeout today,” he tells her. “Get some rest. Water. It’s easy to get dehydrated here, if you’re not used to it. Or if you are.”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “That was unprofessional.”

“Lydia,” he laughs. “Take care of yourself. Keep the ponytail holder. Get some food and you’ll feel less nauseous. And don’t worry about it,” he says. “No security checks today.”

_Don’t worry about it._ Spoken like a true—what? Man who isn’t pregnant?

But she’s not pregnant. Not that she couldn’t be—no time to dwell on that—but she isn’t, so she will not think about it. Yes. Irregular cycles are not unusual for her, with her stress and her workload.

“Go back to your hotel,” he tells her. “Don’t eat like a bird.”

“I’m sorry?” she says. He’s looking at her strangely, his head tilted to the side like an owl. Softening. His expression is softening.

“Sorry,” he says. “You just reminded me of someone I knew.”

\--

The bad news is she’s pregnant. The good news is it’s a girl, and when Lydia finds out she knows she can do this.

“There’s so much opportunity in Europe,” she tells Peter, tells Gustavo. “The Czech Republic is a very promising market.” Send her there, she tells them, and she’ll deliver results. All she needs is time to focus on areas outside the Southwest for six months.

Gustavo she can trust, because she knows he would never hurt her. Mike can be useful, and she knows that everything he does is for his granddaughter, but he can never know about her child.

She gets the go-ahead. When she’s in Houston she finds bespoke maternity wear designed to hide her bump, keeps the Louboutin’s even as her ankles swell. When her colleagues notice she says something about IVF, and the other executives joke about having it all.

Her productivity does not falter. She works her magic in Prague. She is not her mother and that means she can do this.

Lydia’s daughter will want for nothing. Her girl will know nothing about Lydia’s different worlds, and Lydia will get away with it. She has made it too far not to make it any further, because there is no other choice.

**Author's Note:**

> Lydia reminds Mike of the woman with "wrists like little branches" in his Half Measures speech, and not just because of her birdlike preening.


End file.
